Living dangerously

The exhibition title was inspired by the words of Thea Proctor, who returned to Sydney in the 1920s after almost two decades in London and was amused to find her art labelled ‘dangerously modern’, considering herself simply of her time. In adopting this title, this exhibition celebrates the professional achievements of these women artists while highlighting the challenges they faced, both at home and away. Was it their art and ideas that were perceived as ‘dangerous’ – or the independent lives they dared to lead? That so many of their successes remain little-known, we wonder if the danger has been to their legacies.

The selected artists – and thousands more worldwide – pursued the professional promise of London and the moral freedoms and training opportunities of Paris. From a base in these cities, these artists travelled and exhibited their work widely, the skein of their global movements and networks being almost impossible to comprehensively trace. Working as artists, as well as writers, teachers, illustrators, activists and suffragists, these women supported one another. Overcoming the challenges of distance, economics and the prejudice of gender, they often worked together as agents of change.

For many, an inherited stipend or supportive relatives made extended travel possible, but not all were from affluent families. The miniaturist Justine Kong Sing worked as a governess until she was 43 to save enough for her fare to London. Margaret Preston, Frances Hodgkins and many others were dependent on income from teaching art students to remain overseas. In London, the daring Eileen Mayo became a popular life model, and in Paris, Marie Tuck had to shovel snow to pay her tuition fees.

The independent attitude of artists from the southern hemisphere was influenced by their having witnessed women’s suffrage in Aotearoa New Zealand in 1893 and in South Australia in 1894. By 1902 Australia was the first country in the world to grant women the right to vote and to stand for federal election. Notably, this right did not apply to residents who were not of European origin, and most First Nations people had to wait until 1962. It is plausible that suffrage gave travelling Australasian women a quality of self-determination and confidence that was not always equalled by their British and French counterparts, who would wait for equal rights to men until 1928 and 1944 respectively.

When made unwelcome in European spaces dominated by men, Australasian women protested or joined forces to form and exhibit with alternative bodies such as the Women’s International Art Club, the Society of Women Painters or La Société Femmes Artistes Modernes. Distanced from the domestic obligations of home and often independent of the societal norms of their adopted cities, these artists enjoyed the freedom that came with the expatriate experience. Grace Crowley wrote, ‘1927, 1928, 1929 were the happiest years of my life. Why? Because they were productive [and] the feeling I was really getting somewhere with my painting. The “woman’s role” was reduced to a minimum. I could work every day at my painting and there was the joy of discovering Paris in our own way.’

Dangerously Modern reclaims Australian women artists as active participants in the creation and transmission of international modernism. The period explored, 1890 to 1940, begins with the emergence of professional women artists who lobbied for equal rights and access to an art education equivalent to that of men. It closes with the beginnings of the Second World War, which was followed by both social conservatism and new iterations of modernity.

Turning the period geographically outside-in, the focus is placed on art produced beyond Australia’s borders. We are proposing these works are essential to an understanding of Australian art, in accord with artist Kathleen O’Connor’s belief that art is ‘universal, eternal and not parochial’. With advances in travel key to this story, we aim to challenge ingrained notions of distance and delay and of the tired concept of centre and periphery. We have therefore included art created shortly after an artist’s return to Australia from Europe – although painted in regional New South Wales, Grace Crowley’s arresting cubist portrait Gwen Ridley 1930 could have been painted in any studio in any progressive art centre in the world.

Other reversals appear which challenge traditional understandings of modernism, such as artists looking back to make their radical leap forward. Innovations within tradition are seen in the revival of miniature painting, in a retreat from the city in favour of rural subjects and in cubism’s contradictory embrace of classical themes. This blurring of time also shifts to geography. In our metaphorical pushing of continents together we show how Australia, and especially Sydney, belonged to a modern global network within which these travelling women created art, shared ideas and staged exhibitions.

With this shift in emphasis, the personal emerges as a significant theme. Works that garnered public and critical acclaim are considered in equal measure to avant-garde experiments, intimate subjects and neglected works long hidden from view. In recognition of how a change of place and physical distance from home can have the effect of stirring inner transformation, we consider art that offers insight into the artists’ personal lives and private spaces, such as Bessie Davidson’s Intérieur (Interior) 1925. Encoded with lesbian symbolism, Davidson’s work, together with paintings by Janet Cumbrae Stewart and Agnes Goodsir, point to a softer yet subversive modernism reflecting the social freedoms experienced in European cities between the wars.

While the stylistic innovations in this period, from impressionism to abstraction, are widely acknowledged, the expression of ideas by means of intangible themes, such as feeling and faith, are given renewed consideration. Such themes reflect the impact of early 20th-century ideas exploring the role of ‘hidden’ qualities in modern art.

Philosopher Henri Bergson’s theories of a cosmic elan vital (vital energy) and the emerging importance of feeling and consciousness were considered across the Western art world, while the influential British art theorists Roger Fry and Clive Bell regarded emotion as intrinsically bound with artistic form. The well-travelled Margaret Preston was inspired by these ideas, and her students Bessie Davidson, Gladys Reynell and Stella Bowen took up their teacher’s radical and urgent call to break away from ‘eye realism’ and to ‘Let yourself go! Feel what you are doing. Feel it!’

Dangerously Modern steps aside from the dominant national canon, which has long obscured the international work of these women. The project reframes their art around five overarching themes, allowing for new interpretations. ‘Search and solitude’ shows the artists engaged with international art communities and receptive to the expression of inner psychological and emotional states. ‘Radiance and rupture’ celebrates a move outward, with plein-air experiments exploring colour and light. ‘Loss and renewal’ centres on the creative process as a healing response to the trauma of war and social displacement. ‘Awakening’ focuses on moments of profound realisation and breakthrough in both creativity and career. ‘Resolve’ explores the role of art as a vehicle for self-discovery and a search for deeper spiritual truths.

Each theme points to a distinctive shift in social mood and artistic intent while actively reasserting the artists’ personal narratives. This thematic emphasis on emotion and consciousness over literal renderings of the world invites revisionist understandings. It aspires to honour the artists’ visions which guide us towards the realm of felt experience. As Maud Sherwood wrote in 1925, ‘the new conception of art strives more and more for emotion, rather than reality’.

In light of this, the exhibition newly reconsiders the work of artists already well known, such as Hilda Rix Nicholas, Grace Cossington Smith and Margaret Preston, and profiles artists we should know better, including Eleanor Ritchie Harrison, Stella Marks and Helen Stewart.

Dangerously Modern ultimately seeks a deeper understanding of the art and experiences of 50 women artists working far from their Australasian ‘home’. Tracing their art and ‘dangerous’ ideas across vast oceans, this project aims to propel these women forward, reasserting their vital contributions to the transnational story of modernism. This exploration of the development of modernism suggests that being modern, mobile and female was the real danger these artists faced; and a combination of these factors has often placed the legacies of Australasian women artists at a perilous disadvantage.